Contact with natural environments enriches the human microbiome, promotes immune balance and protects against allergies and inflammatory disorders. In Finland, the allergy & asthma epidemic became slowly visible in mid 1960s. After the World War II, Karelia was split into Finnish and Soviet Union (now Russia) territories. This led to more marked environmental and lifestyle changes in the Finnish compared with Russian Karelia. The Karelia Allergy Study 2002-2022 showed that allergic conditions were much more common on the Finnish side. The Russians had richer gene-microbe network and interaction than the Finns, which associated with better balanced immune regulatory circuits and lower allergy prevalence. In the Finnish adolescents, a biodiverse natural environment around the homes associated with lower occurrence of allergies. Overall, the plausible explanation of the allergy disparity was the prominent change in environment and lifestyle in the Finnish Karelia from 1940s to 1980s. The nationwide Finnish Allergy Programme 2008-2018 implemented the biodiversity hypothesis into practice by endorsing immune tolerance, nature contacts, and allergy health with favorable results. A regional health and environment programme, Nature Step to Health 2022-2032, has been initiated in the City of Lahti, EU Green Capital 2021. The programme integrates prevention of chronic diseases (asthma, diabetes, obesity, depression), nature loss, and climate crisis in the spirit of Planetary Health. Allergic diseases exemplify inappropriate immunological responses to natural environment. Successful management of the epidemics of allergy and other non-communicable diseases may pave the way to improve human and environmental health.

In Finland, a systematic public health programme was implemented from 2008 to 2018 to mitigate the burden of allergic disorders by revisiting the prevention strategy. Allergy health and contacts with natural environment were emphasized to promote immunological and psychological resilience instead of poorly justified avoidance. Allergy management practices were improved and low-valued recommendations for care, for example for food allergy, were revised. Patients and families were empowered to use guided self-management to proactively stop symptom exacerbations. A professional non-governmental organization implemented the nationwide education for healthcare and patient NGOs for patients, families and lay public. In healthcare, the work supporting allergic patients and families was organized towards common goals and integrated into everyday work without extra costs. Reaching the predefined goals was followed by employing the national healthcare registers and questionnaire surveys. Governmental bodies contributed with kick-off funding, which was supplemented by private funding. International collaboration, for example with the European patient organization (EFA), increased awareness of the Finnish action and predisposed it for peer review. The 10-year results are favourable, patients are less disabled, practices and attitudes in healthcare have changed, and major cost savings have been obtained. Views of the lay public and patients are slow to move, however. Local multidisciplinary allergy teams were set up to continue the activities also after the Programme. Changes in environment and lifestyle in the last 50 years are the main reasons for the allergy rise. The Finnish experience may help to manage allergic diseases, improve nature relatedness in the fast-urbanizing world, combat nature loss and reduce the disease burden.

A 10-year national program to improve prevention and management of allergic diseases and asthma was implemented in Finland (population 5.5. million) in 2008-2018. The main aim was to reduce the long-term burden of these conditions. The strategy was changed from traditional avoidance to tolerance and resilience of the population. Health was endorsed instead of medicalization of mild symptoms. Disease severity was reevaluated, and disabling clinical manifestations were given high priority. For health care, 5 quantitative goals and 1 qualitative goal were set. For each of the goals, specific tasks, tools, and outcome evaluation were stipulated. During the program, 376 educational sessions gathered 24,000 health care participants. An information campaign targeted the lay public, and social media was used to contact people. In the 10 years of the program, the prevalence of allergic diseases and asthma leveled off. Asthma caused fewer symptoms and less disability, and 50% fewer hospital days. Food allergy diets in day care and schools decreased by half. Occupational allergies were reduced by 45%. In 2018, the direct and indirect costs of allergic diseases and asthma ranged from €1.5 billion to €1.8 billion, with the 2018 figures being 30% less than in the respective figures in 2007. The Finnish proactive and real-world intervention markedly reduced the public health burden of allergic disorders. The allergy paradigm was revisited to improve management with systematic education.

Three techniques to improve beryllium doping in Ga-polar GaN grown by molecular beam epitaxy were investigated: growth under atomic hydrogen, growth under electron irradiation, and growth under an In flux. The samples were characterized by photoluminescence and Hall effect measurements. None of these approaches led to enhanced Be activation. Optical evidence that the Be activation energy may be about 190 meV is presented. Selected samples were also characterized using positron annihilation spectroscopy in an attempt to correlate compensation and PL features with microscopic defects. Positron annihilation spectroscopy (PAS) studies suggest that gallium vacancies and/or gallium vacancy complexes may be related to compensation in beryllium doped gallium nitride samples. There is a correlation between donor-acceptor pair photoluminescence at 3.38eV, beryllium concentration, and yellow-red photoluminescence at 2.0 to 2.1eV.

There are no reports of coordinated action plans to combat all allergic conditions, including asthma, in a defined population. The Finnish Allergy Programme 2008–18 was based on new scientific data of immune development and changed avoidance strategy to tolerance strategy at population level. Medicalization and psychological tolerance were also considered. Severe allergy and asthma were in focus, and allergy health—good life even with allergies—was promoted. Implementation was carefully planned, organized and monitored to help health care adapt the new ideas and improve provision of care. Almost 21,000 health care professionals have taken part in more than 300 educational sessions. An information campaign targeted lay public and 2.3 million Finns were reached. The general messages of the programme were widely accepted and the midterm results indicated that the goals set at the beginning were pragmatic and obtainable. The successes and pitfalls of the Finnish initiative is a lesson to learn, to be adjusted, modified and improved according to local and national needs. Allergic conditions are a heterogenous group of common symptoms causing a lot of disability and costs. A systematic approach can significantly reduce the burden at population level.

AimAssessing the threat status of declining but yet widespread species poses a challenge to applied ecologists. Previous studies using a common metric to describe the spatial aggregation of occurrences across multiple scales, the fractal dimension D-ij, have suggested that species' distributional trends may be deduced from readily understandable spatial patterns: Expanding species are expected to show more aggregated spatial distributions (higher value of D-ij) than declining species (lower value of D-ij). Here, we revisited these predictions using a large-scale empirical dataset on Finnish butterflies. LocationFinland. MethodsFor each butterfly species (n=97) and across three spatial scales (grid squares of 10km, 50km and 100km), we calculated the area of occupancy (AOO(i)) as the sum of occupied grid squares. We employed values of AOO(i) to derive the D-ij for each butterfly species. We then used these metrics to compare the changes in spatial patterns of distribution (AOO(i) and D-ij) between two time periods, 2000-2002 and 2009-2011. ResultsMajority of the studied butterfly species showed declining areas of occupancy (at the scale of 10km, AOO(10)) and fractal dimensions (across the scales from 10km to 100km, D10-100) between the two study periods. In contrast to predictions, AOO(10) and D10-100 showed negative impacts on the AOO(10), an observation that may be explained by the high proportion of declining species in our data. Butterfly species with the greatest fractal dimensions at regional scales (D10-100) in the years 2000-2002 showed both positive long-term distributional trends and most notable northern recent range limit shifts. Main conclusionsOur results were in most cases congruent with the prediction of higher fractal dimension values in expanding compared to declining species. As a novel observation, many butterflies expanded northwards in spite of their occurrences getting simultaneously more scattered, particularly in southern Finland.

Between l99l and 2000, butterflies were monitored once a week from early May to late September on a2.7 km transect on agricultural land at Joutseno, SE Finland. During 213 counts a total of56 species and ll 105 individuals were recorded. The effects ofthe shift from conventional farming to organic farming and adjacent pine forest cuttings on butterfly communities were compared in four field margin habitats. Between the two five-year periods, both beneficial and adverse impact on butterflies was recorded.

The prevention of many diseases has significantly improved by intervening in known risk factors. However, the causes of the increase in allergy and type 1 diabetes are unknown. These diseases are often associated with a low-grade inflammation and immunological imbalance. The lifestyle and environment of urbanized populations have changed causing imbalance in the human normal flora and affecting immune regulation. We discuss everyday factors affecting immune regulation, using allergy as an example. Health may be promoted through the "nature step", by supporting the connection between humans and nature.

University of Tampere School of Management, marketing Author: SAARINEN, KIMMO Title: Utilization of customer online data in customer acquisition Case Surf Master’s thesis: 77 pages, 8 appendix pages Date: May 2015

Rights: © 2005 American Physical Society (APS). This is the accepted version of the following article: Rummukainen, M. & Makkonen, I. & Ranki, V. & Puska, Martti J. & Saarinen, K. & Gossmann, H.-J. L. 2005. Vacancy-Impurity Complexes in Highly Sb-Doped Si Grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy. Physical Review Letters. Volume 94, Issue 16. 165501/1-4. ISSN 1079-7114 (electronic). ISSN 0031-9007 (printed). DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.94.165501, which has been published in final form at http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.165501.

Summary Some forest understorey plants recover carbon (C) not only from their own photosynthesis, but also from mycorrhizal fungi colonizing their roots. How these mixotrophic plants use the resources obtained from mycorrhizal and photosynthetic sources remains unknown. We investigated C sources and allocation in mixotrophic perennial orchids from the genus Epipactis. Based on the assumption that fungal biomass has high δ13C and N content, while photosynthetic biomass has lower δ13C and N content, we indirectly estimated the respective contributions of these two resources to various organs, at various times over the growth season. Fully heterotrophic and fully autotrophic plants from the same sites were used as references for δ13C and N content of biomass purely issuing from fungi and photosynthesis, respectively. In four investigated populations, the biomass shifted from fully heterotrophic in young spring shoots to 80–100% autotrophic in leaves and fruits at fruiting time, suggesting that photosynthesis supported mostly fruiting costs. In addition, fungal colonization decreased in roots over this period. Based on δ13C and N content, below‐ground organs and young spring shoots from green (mixotrophic) individuals and spontaneous achlorophyllous variants (fully heterotrophic) displayed similar fungal C contributions. Similar fungal contributions were also found in shoots of individuals that were either sprouting (and thus partially photosynthetic) or dormant (and thus fully heterotrophic) in the previous years. Therefore, fungal C supported mostly young spring shoots and below‐ground organs. Although experimentally shaded plants had decreased contributions of photosynthetic C in shoots, experimentally defoliated plants showed no increase in fungal C contribution as compared with non‐defoliated controls. Strikingly, these defoliated plants maintained the same seed production: they likely compensated defoliation by increasing stem and fruit photosynthesis. Synthesis. We propose a falsifiable model of C resource allocation in mixotrophic orchids, where mycorrhizal fungi mostly support below‐ground organs and survival, while photosynthesis mostly supports above‐ground sexual reproduction, but not below‐ground reserves. We discuss how this allocation pattern, where seed production depends on photosynthesis, complicates the evolutionary route to full heterotrophy in mixotrophic orchids.

There are no nationwide, comprehensive public health programmes on allergic disorders with set goals and systematic follow-up. The Finnish initiative is based on the idea that the so called allergy epidemic in modern, urban societies is caused by inadequately developed or broken tolerance. The immune system is not trained to make the difference between danger and non-danger (allergy) or the difference between self and non-self (autoimmune diseases). The immune dysfunction leads to inappropriate inflammatory responses and clinical symptoms. The 10-year implementation programme is aimed to reduce burden of allergies both at the individual and societal levels. This is done by increasing both immunological and psychological tolerance and changing attitudes to support health instead of medicalising common and mild allergy symptoms. Severe forms of allergy are in special focus, e.g. asthma attacks are prevented proactively by improving disease control with the help of guided self-management. Networking of allergy experts with primary care doctors and nurses as well with pharmacists is the key for effective implementation. Non-governmental organizations have started a campaign to increase allergy awareness and knowledge among patients and general public. It is time to act, when allergic individuals are becoming a majority of Western populations and their numbers are in rapid increase worldwide. The first results of the Finnish Programme indicate that allergy burden can be reduced with relatively simple means.

BACKGROUND:We have shown that salt chamber treatment reduces airway hyper-responsiveness as an add-on therapy in adult asthmatics on inhaled corticosteroids.METHODS:We assessed whether this effect is due to the suppression of eosinophilic airway inflammation. Thirty-nine adult asthmatics on inhaled corticosteroids were randomized to receive active salt chamber treatment with low-salt treatment 6.6 mg/m(3) (n = 14), high-salt treatment 10.8 mg/m(3) (n = 15) or placebo 0.3 mg/m(3) (n = 10) 10 times in a 2 weeks' period in a double-blind manner.RESULTS:The level of induced sputum eosinophilic cationic protein μg/l, was 3070 before and 4651 after the low-salt treatment period, on average. In the high-salt treatment group, it was 12 192 μg/l vs 11 803 and in the placebo group 3942 vs 4144, respectively. Salt chamber treatment had no effect on sputum eosinophil or neutrophil cell numbers.CONCLUSIONS:The reduction in hyper-responsiveness observed in the previous study is probably not due to the effect on eosinophilic inflammation.

In order to study allergic people responding to daily changes in pollen concentrations, we compared personal diary data on allergic symptoms and the use of allergy medicines to daily pollen counts during the two unequal alder and birch pollen seasons of 2009 and 2010. Almost 90% of the 61 subjects with physician-diagnosed birch pollinosis developed conjunctival, nasal or other symptoms during the peak birch pollination. Most subjects (95%) also reported symptoms during the alder pollination. Despite a delay between the most severe symptoms and the pollen peaks and the increased risk of allergy symptoms between the alder and birch pollen peaks at much lower pollen concentrations, the number of subjects with allergy symptoms correlated with the daily pollen concentrations in both years (r(09) = 0.35, r(10) = 0.36, p < 0.01). The positive correlation was even stronger (r(09) = 0.69, r(10) = 0.74, p < 0.001) in relation to the cumulative sum of daily concentrations. The use of allergy medicines precisely followed the abundance of allergy symptoms in both years (r(09) = 0.96, r(10) = 0.70, p < 0.001). We conclude that there is a fair correlation between the daily allergy symptoms and the particular pollen concentrations, but the risk of developing symptoms at low, moderate and high concentrations is affected by the progression of the pollen season.

Copyright information: Taken from Negative density-distribution relationship in butterfliesBMC Biology 2005;3():5-5.Published online 1 Mar 2005PMCID:PMC554103.Copyright © 2005 Paivinen et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. Error bars represent mean ± 1 SE.